Dreams are mostly nonsense, though there might be some truth to them. He believed that through dreams, humans lived through their worst fears and their greatest aspirations, but also through the mundane.
In one dream, you're once again a child in your mother's arms, crying as you breathe in her familiar smell. You're safe, and the world around you is beautiful. You're safe, and darkness has no place where you lay your head. You're home.
In another dream, you're back at school. Going through the days as you usually do. From lecture to lecture to book to book, trying to understand and learn about the world in which you exist. This life is simple; sure, it is boring at times, but its structure is something that you'll surely miss in your later years. These could be the best years of your life.
But then there are dreams like the ones Kanrel saw. They were filled with betrayal. Filled with loss. Filled with things that make you bitter and that make you not want to trust. These dreams are nightmares, and they are the dreams that shape your fears and form traumas.
All these dreams and nightmares—the fantastical, the mundane, and the hellish—all shape you. One could do without some of them, but not without the rest. After all, a man is just a formation of experiences, and his dreams reflect those experiences.
Kanrel lay in the hospital in a private room. His body was fine, yet his mind was weak, and he had no wish to move; he did not want to leave the warmth of his bed. The warmth in which he lay.
There was a coldness within that refused to leave. A call that would have to be left unanswered. A priest ought not to remove himself from life. Not by force, not by your own hands.
This coldness was just the coldness he had felt the last year or so; it was something that belonged to him, something inherent to him. Something that would now forever be there with him.
How would anyone live with this? How could anyone move forward?
It stung. Not the cold, but the truth that was given. Betrayal of an assumed friend. Soon followed by his timely death at the hands of his mother. Kanrel should be thankful, yet he felt nothing of the sort. There had been so many questions left unanswered.
A motive could not be pinpointed; only one was assumed. This "truth" Yirn had spoken of and written about. An opposition toward the Priesthood and the Herald. All things that didn't make much sense to him.
Now he felt like a fool who was led by someone who never had his best interests in mind. He did many things for Yirn—many things to please him, many things to help. And not once had he questioned the reason for those things or for those requests. Yirn had taken his hand and led him to this time and place. And nearly, just a small fraction away from death.
Looking back, those things that should have been questioned became transparent—moments where Kanrel should've been more suspicious of him. His being almost always late to their meetings, how he just "happened" to find the eyes in the jars, and how he "happened" to say the correct words to open the way to the chamber.
How he was the one to suggest Oidus as the mastermind behind all of this…
Kanrel was a fool—an apparent fool.
In his room, they had found no evidence; there were no words written, no loose blanks, nothing under the bed, and no connection to the attackers. Nothing, nothing at all. Only his actions spoke of his involvement in everything. There was no proof, other than the dead men, of the existence of a nameless anti-priesthood group. He had given no answers; his death had given no answers; there were only new questions that had to be answered, and those questions would be left unanswered. The truth would remain something unknown to him, perhaps for all time to come.
Only if such a group would lift its head from wherever it was hiding could they get any answers to anything.
The few days he had spent in bed were allowed because of his mother being there and because of the conclusions that were drawn from the investigations. He was innocent, and so was Yviev; everything that had happened was blamed on Yirn.
The graffiti, the disappearance of the students, and then their murders, their own faulty investigations into the murders, and then the actions they took against Oidus. And according to the "official investigations," Oidus had been the one who saved the two students from certain death.
It was said that the murders were the work of a radical organization that had an anti-Priesthood agenda and that their main target was Kanrel because of his ties to the Herald. There was no word of the eldritch monstrosity or how they had entrapped Oidus and questioned her. Nor was there a mention of the chamber that they had found; such things weren't for the public after all.
Kanrel, Yviev, and Oidus were vowed into silence, and Oidus got some sudden investments into her research from the Herald herself.
The whole situation was dodgy.
He heard a knock at the door; it would either be a nurse bringing him food or Professor Forsvarn, who suddenly loved to visit him. She wanted to "naturally run into the Herald" or something.
"Come in."
The door opened, and a woman in her mid-forties entered the room; her hair was raven black, and her eyes were green. She wore simple gray robes, as did all the other priests. But her presence was something much greater; all could feel it. Normal people would feel it less so, but the priests could feel the anguish to its full potential.
"Mother," he said, "you've finally decided to pay me a visit."
Her smile was like his, unpracticed and horrific by nature, but at least it was a genuine one, not one of the many smiles of Yirn that had held so many lies.
"I was busy, and we both know that you are just fine and don't need to stay here," she pointed out, pulling out a chair. She ever so gracefully sat down on it. "Are you perhaps sulking? I never expected your teenage rebellion to come in your early adulthood."
Kanrel scoffed. "We both know that this is the only way we will ever have this conversation."
Her smile faded, and her usual serious look took over her face. It was a look of authority, of someone who knew that if she asked for something, it would be perceived as a demand, a wish that ought to be followed.
"I suppose you have many questions to ask then," she said, crossing her arms on her chest. "Ask away, and I'll answer as many as I am allowed to.
Kanrel raised his eyebrows and said, "Allowed to? The mighty Herald of the Gods isn't allowed to answer questions as she pleases?"
As an answer, he only got a shrug.
"Very well… I'll start with the original questions that I wanted to ask of you: Why are the Otherkind mentioned only now and not before?"
"Because now was the correct time to talk about them; the previous Heralds already had information about them, but they were not allowed to share that information with humanity."
"Why? Do you have any proof of such earlier information?"
"Because it is a sensitive topic for the Angels, there is something related to that, which I can't share, that is very sensitive to them. And as for proof, you can think of the location of this academy and take it as proof.
"Do you perhaps mean the chamber?"
"Yes, it is the reason why the academy was built here."
"Was the chamber then built by the Otherkind?"
"Yes," she answered simply.
"What about the engravings within the chamber? What do they mean?"
"They tell history—well, a prophecy; they were made before any of the things that are shown in the engravings happened. A long time ago," she explained, "but I cannot talk about that further; it is past the information that I am allowed to share."
Kanrel sat in his bed and silently peered at his mother, who casually sat in her chair. She gazed back at him. It was difficult to tell if the things she said were the truth, but they were also the only things he would hear about them.
"How about the necklace Yi—he used? The one that turned him into an eldritch monstrosity?"
She shook her head. "I cannot tell you; I am not allowed to." She let out a sigh. "You may ask another question about another topic."
Kanrel furrowed his brows, thought for a moment, and soon asked, "Does it have something to do with the Otherkind?"
"Yes, in a way," she answered simply, "I will not answer further questions about the Otherkind."
"There is something he yelled before his death—something about the true God and then the true magic… What did he mean by these things?" Kanrel asked, but for these questions, he got no answers.
"Why is the conclusion of the investigations so different from reality? Couldn't it at least tell of the existence of the chamber or of how we captured and questioned Oidus?"
"Because the information given to the public is in the best interest of the Priesthood and the Angels, and in the best interest of you and your friend, Yviev."
"I do not wish your friend's future career as a priest to be ruined by her involvement, nor do I want that to happen to my son," she said. "Besides, there is something that is wanted of you."
For a while, he could just stare at her. He couldn't go against her wishes, so he listened.
"You will be appointed as a priest to a village northeast of here, a few hundred kilometers away," she began her explanation. "There, your mission is the same as is the mission of any priest, but you're also to look for things that might be unusual, be it stories told by the locals about mysterious things."
"Investigate them, and then report them via letter to me." She had said her commands, so she got up from the chair. "You'll depart right after graduation, so it is time to get up; it is time to stop sulking like a teenage boy and to take responsibility." She looked deeply into Kanrel's eyes and smiled her usual smile. "Meet your friends; say goodbye to them for now, before it is too late."
She left the room and left the door open. Kanrel could hear from the other side the busy hospital atmosphere. He just sat on his bed and thought about the things that were to come. His curiosity had not been satisfied; instead, there were far more questions that needed answers.
It was the last week of their studies and the last chance to be a part of the mundane that he would surely miss years from now, so he got up and faced the world. He had the last few days of classes to attend, not to mention friends with whom he had much to talk about.